This application claims the priority of German Application No. 20 2005 018 108.0, filed Nov. 19, 2005, the disclosure of which is expressly incorporated by reference herein.
The invention relates to a nozzle head and, in particular, to a nozzle head having a feed line for a high-pressurized fluid, a channel for delivering an abrasive substance, with which the fluid can be loaded, as well as a discharge line, from which the fluid, loaded with abrasive substance, can issue.
Such nozzle heads, through which is guided a high-pressurized fluid, for example water, with an abrasive substance as the additive, are used, for example, as cutting tools in order to cut all possible types of materials. In principle, these nozzle heads are also appropriate for surface treatment of workpieces, primarily for cleaning the surfaces or for roughening them, when it is necessary for a subsequent coating. However, the applicability of these nozzle heads is very limited, since their shape requires a relatively large amount of space so that, for example, the treatment of the inner surfaces of hollow bodies with small inside dimensions is not possible.
In the prior art nozzle heads, the abrasive material is admixed with the fluid from the side. After mixing with the material, the fluid issues from the nozzle head in the subsequent axial conveyance to the feed line. An inside surface, which runs parallel to the feed line and belongs to a hollow body, is almost impossible to treat or can be treated only unsatisfactorily with the prior art nozzle heads, since the issuing fluid impinges on this surface only at a relatively acute angle.
Therefore, the invention is based on the problem of further developing a nozzle head of the above-mentioned type in such a manner that its applicability is improved.
This problem is solved with a nozzle head having a feed line for a high-pressurized fluid, a channel for delivering an abrasive substance, with which the fluid can be loaded, as well as a discharge line, from which the fluid, loaded with abrasive substance, can issue. The feed line and the channel run parallel or almost parallel to each other. The discharge line issues sideways from the nozzle head so as to run at an angle to the feed line.
This structural design of the nozzle head enables an extremely compact construction, which allows the nozzle head to be introduced into hollow bodies that exhibit a relatively small inside diameter so that the inside surface of the hollow body may be treated easily and effectively.
Such a treatment constitutes, for example, the roughening of the surface in order to subsequently coat the surface, with the result that the roughening causes the coating to bind more intensively with the carrier surface.
An advantageous further development of the invention provides that the feed line for the high-pressurized fluid passes over, starting from an axial orientation, into a discharge line, which runs at right angles or approximately right angles. In the latter case, the angle may range from 60 deg. to 120 deg. The discharge line exhibits a mixing chamber, in which the abrasive material is admixed. That is, the channel conveying the abrasive substance empties into this mixing chamber.
In another aspect of the invention, the nozzle head is constructed in two parts, whereby the two joint faces, which lie side by side, extend in the axial direction of the feed line and/or the channel. Therefore, one component includes the feed line for the fluid; and the other component includes the channel, whereas the discharge line extends diagonally thereto in both components. The division of the nozzle head makes possible a very simple and inexpensive production, whereby the two components are preferably screwed together.
To treat the entire inside surface of a hollow body, it is expedient to rotate the hollow body around the nozzle head, while simultaneously moving the nozzle head axially, preferably back and forth. Moreover, owing to the lateral design, the fluid, loaded with the abrasive material, impinges perpendicularly on the surface to be treated, with the result that the efficiency is higher, since the particles of the abrasive substance are not deflected.
In addition, there is the possibility of moving the nozzle head axially over a relatively long distance, with the result that the nozzle head plunges deeper into the hollow body, thus, of course, also improving the applicability.
The invention makes it possible to treat workpieces in the aforementioned sense, which had been possible up to now only with a lot of equipment and time. In fact, now even those workpieces can be treated that to date could not be processed, at least not in this way.
Other advantageous designs of the invention are described and claimed herein.
Other objects, advantages and novel features of the present invention will become apparent from the following detailed description of the invention when considered in conjunction with the accompanying drawings.